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Related: About this forumWars for the Oligarchs, Has the IMF Annexed Ukraine?
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Michael Hudson Report: Finance is a new kind of war and forced sell offs that the IMF is imposing is a new kind of battle ground
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13211
So now the real problem is: what is Ukraine going to have to sell off to pay the foreign debts that it gets for having waged the war that's devastated the economy? Well, the main things that the foreign investors want are Ukrainian farmland. Monsanto has been buying into Ukraine. But Ukraine has a law against alienating its farmland and agricultural land to foreigners. And a matter of fact, its law is very much the same as what the Financial Times reports that Australia is wanting to do today, to block Chinese and American purchase of farmlands. The IMF's position is you have to dismantle public regulations against foreign investment and you have to dismantle consumer production and environmental protection regulations. So, in other words, what is in store for Ukraine is a neoliberal policy that's guaranteed to actually make it even worse. And in that sense, finance is war, finance is the new kind of warfare using finance and forced selloffs in the IMF is a new kind of battlefield. So I'm not sure how all of this is going to really help Ukraine, and it promises to lead to yet another crisis down the road very, very quickly.
PERIES: Michael, let's unpack the debt of this crisis. Now, the war has led Ukraine into a deeper crisis. Talk about the devastation that has caused and what they have to manage in addition to what the IMF is trying to impose on it.
HUDSON: Well, when Kiev went to war against Eastern Ukraine, it fought primarily the coal mining region and the export region. Thirty-eight percent of Ukraine's exports are to Russia. And yet this was the--the export capacity has been bombed out of existence. And, in fact, the electric companies that fuel the electricity to the coal mines been bombed out. So Ukraine can't even supply itself with coal.
Now, that's very--what is so striking about all this is that just a few weeks ago, on January 28, Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said the IMF does not make loans to countries that are engaged in war. That would be funding one side or another. And yet Ukraine is involved in a civil war.
And also the IMF articles of agreement say that it cannot make loans to an insolvent country. So how on earth can the IMF be part of a loan bailout for the Ukraine if, number one, it's at war, the war has to stop totally; number two, it's insolvent? The only solution is that Ukraine will somehow scale back its debts to private investors. And that means a lot of contrary hedge funds investors.
So, again, the Financial Times today has an article showing that an American investor has $7 billion of Ukraine debts and wants to speculate in it. How is Ukraine going to treat the speculators? And then, finally, how is the IMF going to treat the fact that Russia's sovereign fund lent 3 billion euros to the Ukraine on harsh terms through the London agreement terms that can't be written down? Is the IMF going to insist that Russia take the same haircut that it's imposing on the hedge funds? All of this is going to be the kind of conflict that's going to take much more effort than even the solutions that we've seen over the last few days have taken on the military battlefront.
PERIES: And so how could Ukraine imagine getting out of this crisis?
HUDSON: It imagines it'll get out of the crisis by the West giving it $50 billion and saying, here's all the money you need, spend it as you want. That's the extent of its imagination. This is fantasy. It's living in a dream world, except that a few weeks ago, George Soros came out in The New York Review of Books and said, give Ukraine $50 billion and look at it as a down payment on military or with Russia. Well, immediately Kiev said, yes, we will only spend them on defensive arms. We will defend Ukraine all the way up to Siberia as we wipe out the Russians.
Today, yet another Financial Times article said, yes, give Ukraine the 50 billion that George Soros asked for. We've got to enable it to have enough money that it can fight America's war against Russia. And the Europeans are saying, wait a minute, not only at the end of this, but there'll be no more Ukrainians to fight, but the war is going to spread into Poland and into elsewhere, because if the money that's given to Ukraine is really for what the Obama administration and Hillary and Soros are all pressing for to go to war with Russia, then Russia's going to say, okay, if we're being attacked by foreign troops, we're going to have to not only bomb the troops, but the airports are coming in, the railway stations are coming in. We're going to extended towards Europe. And apparently there are reports that Putin told Europe, look, you have two choices before you. The one choice: Europe, Germany, and Russia can be a very prosperous area. With Russia's raw materials and European technology, we can be the most prosperous area in the world. Or you can go to war with us and you can be wiped out. Take your choice.
----------------
All roads lead to the same villains.
Edited to add: I am no Putin lover or apologist, he certainly has shown us who and what he is, but beyond that, I am no lover of these financial wars aimed at bringing nations to their knees.
Having said that, I am really tired of the RT slams on this board too. Is there no room for opposing opinions, are we to only post and view what is presented by our own mainstream media? If that is the case, we are in more serious trouble than I believed possible. If a democratic board cannot allow for opinions which mostly come from our own US presenters simply because they are on RT...then we are beyond lost and no different than the GOP who get their lockstep talking points. Aren't we the party that self-examines & sees the bigger picture.
This is my humble opinion, but I honestly think if we call everything conspiracy if it does not fit with what TV tells us to think, we've lost our capacity for rational and free thinking, and we may as well all join the military, because it is our main focus, not life, not people, just war and more war.
In the above snipped interview...it states
When is enough, enough? Ok, stepping off the soapbox, but I do feel it needs to be said. We are democrats, we once believed and were told by FDR that dissent is our duty.
pa28
(6,145 posts)Now the Ukrainian people will have their pound of flesh extracted for the benefit of bankers and global oligarchs.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)exploit national resources, no surprise Monsanto was mentioned.
The oligarchs and banksters don't give a damn about human lives.
They thrive when austerity decimates a country, always on the backs of the working class and poor, adding interest upon interest to the "bailouts", privatization...we know the whole ball of wax by now. Don't we?
This is a humanitarian crisis and that crisis is going global. Who is safe? Who is next?
uhnope
(6,419 posts)The Kremlin has been caught hiring PR firms to get "useful fools"
...Using filings from the Justice Department, the non-profit ProPublica detailed last November how Ketchum helped place op-eds by "seemingly independent professionals" that praised Russia in outlets like CNBC and the Huffington Post, among others, without proper disclosure.
It is not unusual for a PR firm to work with a government.
There's more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-nyt-op-ed-ketchum-pr-2013-9#ixzz2ejAKeAlK
I suspect "The Real News Network" (shades of FOX's "Fair and Balanced" is in the new pipeline. Check out this RWNJ report they did a while ago. Putin is worth at least $100 Billion in stolen roubles so it can pay for a lot of BS like this
mother earth
(6,002 posts)I think what needs to be done is to start a list of all things and people who are part of this propaganda war to warp our minds and manipulate our thinking on Vladimir Putin and win him an adoring following.
So far, from your criticism, the list is as follows:
Russia Today (RT) and of course that would include Thom Hartmann
The Real News Network (TRNN) and of course that would include Chris Hedges, Michael Hudson, thats a big list, Im sure theres more, since they are an offshoot of Fox News which should also be added, because many an intelligent person is being fooled by the eloquently speaking anchors.
We've got to stop listening to Richard Wolff too, I can think of at least six universities who should be notified immediately of his nature so as not to allow him to warp young minds in his classes, as well, along with adding his books to the bonfire. Pacifica Radio & the New York Times must be alerted, or they too should be added to our list to avoid.
We should ban certain books & perhaps resort to burning them & purging them from the internet & Amazon for starters, the big two of course, Shock Doctrine & Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
Help me out if Ive missed something.
Maybe its just me, but Ive always thought many of my fellow Duers are intelligent enough to sift through a vast amount of information, discarding the useful fools along the way. I guess Putie hasnt learned that yet, being how he is no believer in democracy & how our own MSM is quite objective and fearless when it comes to reporting all of the truth & nothing but the truth.
Im going to need to compile a list of the safe sites, the channels we should be watching & all those economists who are NOT paid schills for Putin. Who are they by the way, uhnope?
I hope we have all seen the errors of our ways this morning. I know I have. I have learned much about useful fools.
TY, uhnope, I have recalled a historical era and the term, "McCarthyism" and see it is alive and well and pertains not only to our collective experience at DU, but our country, our global world. I commend you for doing that in your time here. Well done.
libodem
(19,288 posts)I could take a hide per day with this one and spend my life in time out. I'm nearly bursting with self restraint.
Kill' em with kindness? Nice technique.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)teach and/or learn? We take for granted that every time we come to DU to post, it is solely for the interaction we have with each other, but it is truly far more than that.
Believe me, I hate politics these days and I don't suffer fools, my inspiration comes from people who truly have a vision and it is what makes me see so much more is possible and for that I don't sweat the small stuff.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Since everything in a sarcastic post means its opposite, can you explain how this is sarcastic:
Did you forget the sarcasm when you said " I guess Putie hasnt learned that yet, being how he is no believer in democracy" ?
Or do you think that Putin is a believer in democracy?
I just don't understand the pass that Putin is getting from some who consider themselves progressive. He's the most dangerous fascist force in Eastern Europe, assassinating all opponents in his path, waging war, occupying sovereign countries for "New Russia" and conducting a slow pogrom on gays, progressives, dissidents, and anyone who doesn't play ball with his kleptocracy.
Can you explain?
mother earth
(6,002 posts)is extremely transparent. I give passes to no one, your interpretation needs work. Every post I make is about the kleptocracy sweeping globally.
You missed the main point of my earlier reply. Here it is: McCarthyism....stop looking for witch hunts.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Here is a passage from your post:
So, obvious sarcasm about the "MSM," but unclear about Putin. Could you clear that up? Just wondering how you see this. I know that Richard Wolff thing still stings but this something very different, since your OP contains an article that is pushing some basic BS, "Has the IMF Annexed Ukraine?", really insulting BS since Russia has literally invaded and annexed the Ukraine, and Russia's theft of people's wealth makes the IMF look like child's play. And it all looks even worse now that the world once again sees Putin for what he is, re the assassination of Nemstov. Please clear that up thx.
On edit, I see your edit:
"but"...? You don't think Putin is conducting a financial war--a kleptocracy--that makes the IMF look like the Red Cross?
mother earth
(6,002 posts)Yes, I was being sarcastic in the OP:
because we are all aware of Fox's reputation. Sorry if I offended you by not using the sarcasm alert,
and I'm delighted you did see my edit. Well done.
Can you clarify for me that you understand the concept of McCarthyism?
I'm curious since it is a well learned historical lesson and is imperative that we sometimes revisit these painful lessons from our nation's past, so as not to repeat them.
I thank you for kicking my OP, and have enjoyed our discourse.
Response to mother earth (Reply #15)
uhnope This message was self-deleted by its author.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)the insult you made about Richard Wolff on the video you allude to here, there is no sting. My reaction was hidden by jury decision and I accept that, I too alerted on you on that very thread...because you go after anyone posting RT or views that you feel support Putin, I have stated repeatedly. I accept that my alert was not hidden, and in retrospect I fully understand why.
I feel as you do about Putin. So I am grateful for this opportunity to clear the air here.
My only issue with you is that you repeatedly go after topics on the video/mm board of DU if someone merely posts an RT video.
Just because we time to time post something from RT does not mean we are supporting Putin. A clear example of that is Thom Hartmann's videos, and other posters here have echoed the same sentiments.
We merely object to the freedom to not be harassed if we post something we find of value. Which is why I ask you if you understand the lesson of McCarthyism.
Nobody's paying people who post RT videos here, at least not that I'm aware of, and I doubt Michael Hudson or TRNN is paid to schill for Putin.
So, once again, a big TY.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)I deleted my other post since you answered here.
I do go after RT videos, especially when they are posted by obvious supporters of Putin and there are plenty of other sources for the same info that could be posted. (I usually give Hartmann RT vids a pass, even though it's a crying shame he's been forced into that corner. Liz Wahl and Sara Firth did the honorable thing re RT, it's too bad Hartmann hasn't.) IMO there is little to no reason to ever post an RT video, since the same info, without the pro-Kremlin spin/implication, can be found elsewhere; indeed even Hartmann has his radio shows on video and those could be posted instead.
McCarthy was a unprincipled thug. JFK's Cold War liberalism was something else. Anyway, we won't have to go there because Putin's Russia, no matter how bad it's getting, is in nowhere near the power position of Soviet Russia.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)I know it is so easy to get swept away when you are passionate about a topic. I think anyone at DU feels passionate about issues.
I'm not the enemy, you aren't the enemy. I think we can come to agreement that there is so much to open our eyes to, which is the only reason I come here.
Look, after all this silly drama, you and I can go forward now and actually talk something out. We may not always agree, but I know you now for your honesty instead of for your provocation. Who says peaceful negotiation cannot work?
I get why you are against RT, I disagree that it is necessary, is all. I hope we have paved the way for all of us to "allow for".
Peace, not war, uhnope.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)really be something that is actually looked at, if we can get past the glaring fact that this OP involves the Ukraine.
I also hope you might be able to view the new Richard Wolf video I posted. He speaks about Marxism on that video. I know your knee jerk reaction is to feel it is a "Russia" or Putin thing, but I'm hoping you might be able to see past that this time and hear the man out on this one. I enjoy hearing him because he is a professor and speaks in easy to understand terms.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)and I definitely overreacted to Richard Wolff. It's just because he has been posted on DU by the actual supporters of Putin's fascism here, so I thought he was yet another Trojan Horse.
I have to apologize that I'm no longer too good for academic explorations into theoretical alternatives or philosophical possibilities. I think it's great that people like to discuss these things but I don't. I like Coltrane but I'm more of a Sex Pistols/Pussy Riot kind of person.
The OP is unfortunate because it's a thinly veiled attack on the West vis a vis Ukraine, and a thinly-veiled distraction from the devastation being enacted on Ukraine by Putin's Russia.
I know about the downsides of the IMF/World Bank machinations. But the main thing is that I travelled thru Europe soon after the Berlin Wall came down, and I saw the results of the post WW2 US/West/capitalism's influence, with all its faults, on Western Europe, versus the effect of so-called Communism/Stalinism/Kleptocracy on Central and Eastern Europe. Not just in economic terms but in basic freedoms, flourishing of art. I mean, just West Germany vs East Germany. France vs Czech Republic. There a little comparison to be made--one side of the wall had the closest to what the world has achieved in providing basic requirements of material and freedom, the other side was a disaster. (And I no longer think it was even a disaster of an economic theory, I think that theory was a ruse to enact a totalitarian kleptocracy--one that existed before Communism with the Tsars and continues now in the form of Putin's Russia.)
mother earth
(6,002 posts)here. Every single exploitation is connected to the oligarchs by the same method. I think this main issue gets sidetracked and purposely so the carnage can continue.
I don't think economic theories are for brainy people, a good understanding of this is essential to the everyday person, from any walk of life, if we want real change. Change is going to come from people with the ability to present new ideas and to think outside of the box. The world is changing, the old ideas need a good brushing off for the lessons they give us, not for the way forward.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)I listen to Krugman and maybe Stiglitz but that's it. No, sorry, the OP article is a flaming heap of dung. Look at Hudson's quote:
"Well, when Kiev went to war against Eastern Ukraine"
WTF? It did not "go to war" with itself. First Russia invaded, occupied and "annexed" Crimea and then Russia started the proxy war in eastern Ukraine. And that Hudson is probably getting paid to spout this stuff, because he's suddenly very popular in certain quarters.
The IMF is not the main guilty party in Ukraine--the fascist occupying force of Putin's Russia is the guilty party. As I said before, Putin's kleptocracy makes the IMF look like Doctors Without Borders.
No, sorry, calling BS on Hudson, TRNN and the whole rolodex
mother earth
(6,002 posts)any of the OP, but that's you prerogative.
I guess we are back to a review on the principles of McCarthyism. He too saw commies everywhere, from blacklisting actors & on and on. With a return to cold war tactics, the old stink rises again, while the oligarchy banks on it. Fascism rises with austerity, so if you are truly against fascism, I am very confused as to why you are so resistant and so insistent. But then maybe something more is at play.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)You are the one not addressing the issues I raise and instead keep repeating "McCarthyism." Wake up, it's the 21st century, stop imagining McCarthys hiding under your bed
mother earth
(6,002 posts)under the bed.
So, this was an exercise in futility, but it was revealing at the same time. So, once more, TY
In the big game of disinfo, transparency is winning. Don't take that as an attack for Putin again. It's a win for revealing why there are so many attacks on discussion boards, the disruptors always reveal themselves for who and what they are.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)and that Ezra Pound was an rabid anti-Semite, and the "Zeitgeist" films are wacky CT, but these you praise?????
mother earth
(6,002 posts)threads and the witch hunt. You've pretty much outed yourself, and not in a good way.
Take it or leave it...really. Our interaction is over.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)If you didn't know that about Pound or Zeitgeist then I don't blame you for accidentally praising it
mother earth
(6,002 posts)OP is about how it is being driven by the IMF. It's played over and over again, as mentioned, across the globe.
You changed your thinking on Wolff & understand McCarthyism, so I'm hopeful you will begin to see through the banksters making debt slaves of nations, and for profit wars that serve oligarchy. There is more to what's going on than what the masses see as simple military actions, war is morphing and is more and more about money and exploitation than anything else.
Economics has everything to do with kleptocracy, so I am confused if you see it on one level, but not another.
You might want to learn more about Naomi Klein's, Shock Doctrine, from wiki:
Response to mother earth (Reply #26)
uhnope This message was self-deleted by its author.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)and you really don't know the difference or remember her name?
Seriously...you seem to have a real lack of knowledge of some democratic issues and the people who have made them common topics at DU. Odd.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)mother earth
(6,002 posts)mother earth
(6,002 posts)since we seem to be re-entering one with some familiar twists and turns, alike but different, just for the sake of younger lurkers or those who may need a memory jolt of all of the glories of Sen. Joseph McCarthy & his witch hunt.
http://www.coldwar.org/articles/50s/senatorjosephmccarthy.asp
No doubt there is plenty of info freely available, but its nice to pop them in where need be at times like these.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Canto 38, in particular, cites the manipulations of Metevsky (Sir Basil Zaharoffb ), Akers (Vickers), and Herr Krupp. All three were munitions manufacturers who were able to sell huge quantities of armaments to both sides in a conflict by encouraging them to surpass each other in destructive potentiala game which combined the most exciting features of a Dutch Auction and Russian Roulette. But wars not only boost sales, they can also prevent goods from becoming so abundant that they fall in price:
When there is danger of abundance of any, or almost all, commodities, then the usurocracy unleashes a war in order to diminish purchasing power.
What better way to neutralise abundance than to concentrate production in goods which are ceremonially destroyed, as in a primitive potlatch? Of coarse, now that total war has become an anachronism, the ceremony must take place within a limited area. Such practices are difficult to document, since all evidence is classified in the interests of national security.
Even the Pentagon Papers tell us more about the relatively public world of government than the private world of finance. But G. William Domhoff, in his important and meticulously documented book, Who Rules America?, offers powerful evidence that industry is the dominant partner in Americas military-industrial complex. And, according to George Thayer in The War Business,
The government officials who sell arms today have power that Zaharoff never dreamed of, they are protected to a degree that no private entrepreneur of old ever enjoyed, and they operate with less restraints upon them than even those few imposed on the master arms merchant himself two score years ago.
'The Economics of Human Energy' in Brooks Adams, Ezra Pound, and Robert Theobald - by John Whiting, London University
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K&R
mother earth
(6,002 posts)giving and kind influence whose integrity I have come to count on. TY for your response.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)Jacque Fresco, is an American futurist and self-described social engineer. Fresco is self-taught and has worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design. Fresco writes and lectures his views on sustainable cities, energy efficiency, natural-resource management, cybernetic technology, automation, and the role of science in society. Fresco directs The Venus Project. Fresco advocates global implementation of a socioeconomic system which he refers to as a "resource-based economy."
en.wikipedia.org · Text under CC-BY-SA license
Born: Mar 13, 1916 (age 98) · Brooklyn, New York
Partner: Roxanne Meadows
Spouse: Patricia Fresco
Founded: The Venus Project
What is The Venus Project?
The Venus Project proposes an alternative vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilization. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our culture in which the age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but as totally unacceptable. Anything less will result in a continuation of the same catalogue of problems inherent in today's world. Today many people believe what is needed is a higher sense of ethical standards and the enactment of international laws to assure a sustainable global society.
For more info:
https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/
uhnope
(6,419 posts)unbelievable. And Zeitgeist in the same post?
So rapid anti-Semite Ezra Pound and then Zeitgeist conspiracy theory that "bankers manipulate world events."
Sounds like people trying to find euphemisms for "Jews run the world" BS, DeSwiss